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Where to start? I hail from the land of Portlandia. It's not as quirky as the show makes it out to be, but we're all pretty proud of the "keep Portland weird" motto. Grew up playing outside, riding mountain bikes, and brainstorming inventions. I guess the modern day entrepreneur is a bit like what I thought an inventor did. There are two stories to how the W&P idea came to be. The first is that, I worked at Unilever marketing and selling soap. In this corporate setting, cotton button-downs from brooks bros, ralph lauren, J. Crew were the gold standard. I found myself spending too much time dry cleaning or attempting to wash then iron these types of shirts. The non-irons from Brooks Bros were nice because they didnít wrinkle, but after a two or three wears they started to smell! Thatís about as good as it got until I started wearing some vintage wool shirts. I rarely dry cleaned them and hardly hung them up. Kept wearing them. No smell or wrinkles. I wanted to make a more contemporary version with a super fine yarn. And thatís what you see on kickstarter. The second story about how W&P came to be is that my family owns Pendleton Woolen Mills in Oregon and Iíve been versed in wool-speak since birth. I was practically fed wool. The shirt I tested for 100 days is actually an altered Pendleton shirt.

#2 Why did you choose Kickstarter out of all the crowdfunding platforms that exist today? Do you think you could have succeeded in funding your project on another crowdfunding platform? If so, which?

I don't think W&P would have been nearly as successful if we launched on a different crowd-funding platform. Kickstarter definitely has the most reach from what I can see.

#3 What do you feel contributed the most to the success of your project? Where did all these people who funded your project come from?

Media exposure as a result of wearing a shirt for 100 days. We had world wide reach in a matter of a week. That sums it up.

#4 What was something that you learned from having a successful Kickstarter project which you did not know prior to going live?

Keep demand higher than supply. Sell out! Scarcity.

#5 What mistakes do you think you may have made along the way on your crowdfunding journey?

Giving the media too large of a hook. Our shirt went from a "shirt that hardly needs to be washed" to "a miracle shirt that self cleans". Expectations got a bit out of hand, and we had to work to level them out. We've been receiving positive feedback on the shirt since we shipped then in November: http://blog.woolandprince.com/post/6...ers-are-saying

#6 If you could give advice to someone thinking about launching a crowdfunding campaign, what would it be?

All the work happens before the campaign. To start don't focus on the campaign, focus on the product/brand/need. Things will fall into place after.

#7 Now that your project has been fully funded, what issue or unexpected occurrences have you run into, if any?

Building a brand is a lot harder than I thought it would be. It will take time and consistency. Partner with operationally focused businesses. We use DMI Fulfillment out of St. Louis and they have been terrific.